This is going to be a special chapter. Not only are we going to kill an endless number of feral laguz and have some lingering questions answered, but Nephenee is going to reach a whole new level of godhood, Geoffrey will make and break a promise to Elincia in the span of about 30 seconds, and we’ll get Volke back (and he’ll actually be competent!). All things considered, a lot of stuff happens during this chapter. Read more →

I’ve always been fond of this chapter, but what I remember most is it being a seemingly impossible hurdle during my hard mode playthrough. It was one of those ones that I had to set aside for several months and come back to with a clear head, and it really can be that tricky. It’s never cheap, though, instead managing to be difficult in an entirely fair way. This is also where we’ll recruit another character, and it’s the last character you’d ever expect to join up. The whole thing is so random that I legitimately didn’t know that it was even possible until this playthrough. Read more →

This stage is awful. I adore the game as a whole, but this stage really is bad. It’s slow because movement is limited, an enemy has an annoying sleep staff, there are a ton of indirect attackers who insist on targeting Volug over and over again, and the Black Knight shows up to steal lots of kills when you try to take it slow. But hey, we get Stefan and his Vague Katti sword, so it’s not all bad. It just took over an hour to get through the stage, and all I found in the sands was a single coin. I know there’s more out there (including an item that does bonus damage against dragon laguz that would become incredibly useful later), but I’ve never found any of that stuff. Read more →

It didn’t occur to me until this chapter, but I usually stick Zihark and Volug into this Tibarn/Elincia group. Instead, they’re with Micaiah for this playthrough. That’s not a big deal (especially since she can use all the help she can get), and Nephenee and Boyd are both in this group to make things easier, but this is usually a really impressive level where Volug gets a bunch of level-ups and beats enemies while untransformed. Instead, this level gets the Nephenee treatment while Elincia and Boyd help out. Volug is a bit underleveled anyway, so it’s probably better this way. Read more →

This chapter gives us control of Ike’s group, and while it’s significantly stronger than the other two groups thanks to the added strength of a leveled-up Soren and Titania, this group will nevertheless be involved in the most chaotic, difficult chapters. This chapter’s stage has a fog of war effect and numerous potential points of entry for enemy NPCs early on. Oh, and flying units who can totally catch you off-guard. And reinforcements that teleport in like the last chapter, which is the new normal. Read more →

A whole lot of stuff just happened at the end of Act 3, and Act 4 only piles on more and more. Most of it makes sense, though there are a small handful of things that I’m finding to be poorly communicated. It hurts to say that about my favorite game of all time, but at least one of these things can be rendered a non-problem on subsequent playthroughs (depending on which choices you make; obviously if you don’t choose any of the new options on later playthroughs, the same issues are likely to present themselves). This first time through can definitely become a bit confusing, though, so I’ll try to go over everything that happens in a clear way. Read more →